Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist and internationally published novelist of science fiction and fantasy. In addition to eight published novels, Nina has written award-nominated short stories, articles and non-fiction books, which have been translated into several languages throughout the world. Recognition for her work includes the Midwest Book Review Reader’s Choice Award, finalist for Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year Award, the SLF Fountain Award, and The Delta Optimist Reviewers Choice.

Nina regularly publishes reviews and essays in magazines such as The New York Review of Science Fiction and Strange Horizons. She serves as staff writer for several online and print magazines, and was assistant editor-in-chief of Imagikon, a Romanian speculative magazine. She currently writes for Amazing Stories and is an editor of Europa SF, a zine dedicated to informing the European SF community.

Nina teaches writing at the University of Toronto and George Brown College. She also gives writing workshops and courses based on her award-nominated guidebook “The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now!” (Starfire World Syndicate). The textbook is used in colleges and universities throughout North America and Europe. It was translated and published by Editura Paralela 45 in Romania. The next book in her writing guide series “The Journal Writer: Finding Your Voice” was released in winter of 2012 in Romanian by Editura Paralela 45 and in English in early 2013 by Starfire.

For more information about booking her workshops, online classes, individual consultations, or speaking appearances go to www.ninamunteanu.me. Her award-winning blog The Alien Next Door hosts lively discussion on science, travel, pop culture, writing and movies.

Merridy Cox Bradley is a freelance technical writer and editor with experience in thesaurus-building and other such three-dimensional cross-paragraph puzzles. Her background is in biology (B.Sc.) and museums (M.Msl.), and she has a love of the English language. She is completing an English manual with excerpts and photos in a blog, www.englishmanual.wordpress.com. Her published work, as an editor, includes e-book Edwardian Annotated Pets and How to Keep Them, Part I: Beasts and The Literary Connection: Volume I, IOWI.  You may find her in Toronto, Mississauga, Peterborough, or occasionally Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Colin McClean is an author, illustrator, and
challenge coach.
In 2004, he founded LLSCartoons, a marketing
communications design firm that specializes in
simplifying complex information through design. It
was an extension of his Life’s Lighter Side…comic
strip, which was published weekly in the Greater
Toronto Area from 2001-2010. Using the comedic
edge that propelled the cartoon strip, his illustrations
make people laugh, while helping them to grow their
businesses.
In 2013, he established ColinMcClean.com to
expand his passion for helping others to grow,
overcome challenges, and achieve their goals. As a Certified Adult Trainer, Colin uses a mix of
comedy and practicality to deliver hundreds of workshops, coaching and mentoring sessions,
including team development and retreat facilitation.
Colin’s range of experience led to the publication of “A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To…
My Career!”, a creative self-help guide that uses humour to help job seekers hone the skills they
need to find work, even in challenging economic times.
In addition to studying graphic design, Colin has an honours graduate diploma in Marketing
and Business Administration, a certification in Adult and Continuing Education and
Teaching and is a Competent Toastmaster.

Max Layton is the eldest son of Canadian poet Irving Layton, Max left his Montreal home at the age of 16 and, since then, has worked as everything from tobacco picker, logger, and apprentice auto mechanic, to vice president of a bank. Along the way, he was one of the founders of Toronto’s Book City bookstore and earned a Master’s degree in Eng. Lit. from the University of Toronto. A published novelist and short story writer, Max went legally blind ten years ago and during that difficult period he recorded his first CD of original songs, Heartbeat Of Time. His eyesight eventually restored thanks to the miracle of modern science, Max feels he has been given a second chance. His first book of poems, When The Rapture Comes, was published in 2012 by Guernica Editions and his second CD, 2 The Max, was released at the same time. Max’s third and latest CD, It’s A Mystery To Me, was released in 2014 and now Max is celebrating Guernica’s publication of another book of poems, In The Garden Of I Am, which Leonard Cohen has called, “One hell of a book!”
More info about Max at www.maxlayton.com

Jennifer Travis Maruno began her publishing career with award winning educational materials for The Peel District School Board and the Ontario Ministry of Education. She is one of the authors of Explorations a mathematics program for Addison-Wesley of Canada and worked with TVO in developing teaching materials for the television show Mathica’s Mathshop. For her contributions to educational writing, she received the Federation of Women Teachers Writing Award, the National Council of Teachers Award of Excellence and The Award of Merit from the National School Public Relations Association. She holds a Masters of Education, Principal’s and Primary Specialists certification and is a graduate of the Institute of Children’s Literature and the Humber School of Writers summer program. Her short stories for children have appeared in a variety of children’s magazines in Great Britain, United States and Canada.

Educator, researcher and author, Jennifer Maruno knows stories provide much more than entertainment. From the pages of Canadian history, she creates novels empathetic to those who have experienced the darker side of our past.  Maruno’s understanding of the importance of cultural identity has brought The Cherry Blossom series, based on the Japanese Internment , Warbird  a novel of  Jesuit life among the Huron people,  Kid Soldier the story of an underage soldier during WW2 and Totem a boy seeking identity from the confines of a residential school.

A member of CANSCAIP and THE WRITERS UNION OF CANADA , her novels have won nominations for the Hackmatack , Young Readers of Canada, and Rocky Mountain Book Awards.

Betty Jane Wylie is a published, produced author and playwright with a D.Litt. (University of Manitoba) and an Order of Canada. She has published about three dozen books (everything but fiction) including plays, musicals, screenplays, biography, coobooks, belles lettres, poetry, self-help, children´s plays and puppet plays. She is a founding member of the Professional (formerly Periodical) Association of Writers in Canada, and of what is now called the Playwrights´ Guild of Canada, and a past chair of The Writers´ Union of Canada.

Joseph Kertes founded Humber College’s creative writing and comedy programs. He is currently Humber’s Dean of Creative and Performing Arts and is a recipient of numerous awards for teaching and innovation. His first novel, Winter Tulips, won the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour. Boardwalk, his second novel, and two children’s books, The Gift and The Red Corduroy Shirt, met with critical acclaim.

His novel, Gratitude, won a Canadian National Jewish Book Award and the U.S. National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. Kertes has also been a finalist for a National Magazine Award and the CBC Literary Award.

His latest novel is called The Afterlife of Stars, and it is published by Penguin Canada. Richard Bausch said of it that “it is blazing with every good thing a work of fiction ever does or could do.”